The Triple Six

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
U.S. Route Highway 666 starts in Monticello, Utah and ends in Gallup, New Mexico. The desert scenery is beautiful, but it is also a land with a long history of strange phenomena, so much so that some travelers take pains to avoid it, especially after dark when there's a full moon.

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Chimney Rock off Hwy 666 (now US Route 491)

U.S. Route 66 was finalized in 1926. This road connected the cities of Chicago, Illinois to Los Angeles, California. Several extensions were added Route 66. The 6th extension became known as Route 666 and was quickly given the moniker of The Devil's Highway. It runs for 200 miles passing through the Navajo Nation and Shiprock.

The road was also referred to as The Triple Six in the New Mexico counties of San Juan and McKinley. It was once the deadliest per mile in New Mexico.

The two-lane road runs through rural country, full of blind hills making these stretches very dangerous. The most notorious portion is now U.S. Route 191 in Arizona, which winds through the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest and the White Mountains. There are 400 curves within a 120-mile stretch.

The Automobile Association of America (AAA) for many years published its "Indian County" map of the Four Corners region of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. Route 666 is marked with a red arrow. 

In 2003, Route 666 was renamed to U.S. Route 491 in an effort to escape its notorious reputation as a cursed roadway with an unusually high number of accidents and fatalities.

One incident of high strangeness is the sighting of a black vehicle that appears out of nowhere and charges motorists along lonely stretches of the road. It is supposedly driven by the devil himself.

See the trailer of the 1977 film The Car, based on the sightings through the years.

For some it starts when the sun is dipping towards the horizon and a feeling of intense fear envelopes them. Once night falls, they see headlights coming behind them. The vehicle comes dangerously close, and no matter if they speed up the car paces them. Some pull over, and the black car races past them, others find the car has disappeared.

Travelers report a semi truck that speeds along the highway, and forces them off the road. It's described as having an evil intent, almost as if it's possessed by an demonic spirit. Known as a "Mad Trucker", police suspected the driver would intentionally run over pedestrians.

There were also bodies dumped along the highway, some remained anonymous.

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Hell hounds have been reported on Route 666

Night travelers along Route 666 describe a pack of black hounds that race alongside their cars. These beasts are believed to have caused different accidents through the years, by shredding tires and jumping through windows into the vehicles themselves.

Autos are known to inexplicably overheat, or tires go flat for no reason.

There is the specter of a girl seen on the side of the road dressed in a white gown. She has a sad expression on her face, and disappears when she's approached. In contrast there are stories of faceless, phantom hitchhikers.

Some legends connected to the haunted highway are tied to Indian culture. One of these are skin walkers which have the ability to shape shift. The belief is that these were once medicine men who turned to dark witchcraft. They haunt the highway and will appear suddenly in front of traffic, sometimes as a human, but other times in an animal form the shape shifter can adopt. It's inevitable that serious accidents are said to be caused by their appearance.

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Strange accident and vehicles mishaps are reported on US Rt. 666

Even more alarming are stories of an evil shaman appearing in the back seat of the car. His aim is to steal the driver's soul when a bad accident takes their life.

There are ominous reports of motorists who have disappeared without a trace. Sometimes the vehicle or something belonging to the missing person is recovered, but there are times when nothing is found. In some cases, the missing person has reappeared with no memory of what happened to them, whether it was for hours or days that they were gone.

Reports of missing time are also common, with no recollection of what was seen, heard or experienced during the drive.

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Shiprock, NM

Throughout the years, there were hundreds of accidents, these are some of them: 

In 1948, the Butz family were involved in a one-car accident where the driver inexplicably lost control of the vehicle. It skidded on the highway and rolled down a 160-foot cliff to the bottom of the canyon. Arnold Butz and his wife Frances smashed the front windshield and got out, however Katherine Butz was trapped in the back seat and was seriously injured. They were traveling on U.S. Route 666, 8 miles south of Alpine.

In 1955, one man burned to death and two others were hospitalized with 2nd and 3rd degree burns over most of their bodies, after their 1936 pick up truck went off the road and rolled down a ravine 10 miles north of Gallup on Route 666. The survivors told police they had been drinking and decided to take a ride out on the Devil's Highway, however they couldn't remember what happened after they left town.

​In 1959, Billy John was struck and killed near the Shamrock Motel, north of Gallup on Route 666.

​In 1960, a 3 a.m. head on collision landed three persons in the hospital. It happed on Route 666 about 10 miles north of Gallup.

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One of many fatalities on Rte 666 c.1996

In 1996, on a section of 666 near Newcomb, Rose Teller Lee and one of her sons, and one of her grandsons were killed in a crash that also took the life of Charles Bump whose pickup veered across the center line and smashed into the Lee car head-on.

In 1995, Jay McCollum pastor of the First Baptist Church of Gallup, New Mexico said, "It's an evil oppression which needs to be broken." Joe Caretto who ran the Rollie Mortuary in Gallup and buried "a fair number of the hundreds of people killed in Route 666 accidents", called it the Highway to Hell.

The two counties traversed by Route 666, McKinley and San Juan, ranked as the most dangerous counties in New Mexico to drive in, based on alcohol-related accidents. Hitchhiking was commonplace, and pedestrians were involved in about 75% of the 15 to 20 traffic fatalities occurring each year (1995) on Route 666.

The country is popularized by Tony Hillerman, author of the Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee mystery novels.

The dark association of the road was interwoven into the film Natural Born Killers. Throughout the movie, the media covers the public’s reaction to a psychopathic pair’s murder spree as they take a bloody road trip down Route 666.

So where does myth end and truth begins? Do the high number of accidents and fatalities have something to do with the road's name, or is it just sheer coincidence? 

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